Posts Tagged ‘Boomeranged Metaphors’

Here is another example of how virtual experiences from the digital realm are gradually seeping into our physical environment. The mobile phone unlocking tool has now boomeranged into the real world, in the form of a doormat. Unfortunately it doesn’t really unlock the door, yet!

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Where civilizations of the past left drawings, glyphs and written messages, we have taken to the internet to record the vast majority of modern history and knowledge. But is it permanent? At Old Dominion University in Virginia, researchers Hany Salah Eldeen and Michael Nelson have been studying the rate at which information on the internet disappears, and if it can be restored.

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Remember those good old days days when you were actually carrying goods out of the racks in a shop? If the Korean Virtual Shopping Store becomes a success, all shop shelves will soon be LCD Screens.

Customers simply choose their desired items by touching the LCD screen and checkout at the counter in the end to have all their ordered stuff packed in bags. Image consumption in the overdrive. Thanks Arnoud.

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404 error on the Toilet. Another one of these tiny unexpected moments that make you realize you are spending so much time in the virtual realm that its metaphors are boomeranged into the physical environment. By Dennis Vernooij.

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With Facebook: The Board Game, American graphic designer Pat C. Klein brings social media to the real world. The artist reinvented the most classic board game, Monopoly, by replacing houses, hotels, streets, Chance and Community Chest with the famous activities of Zuckerberg’s social network. Read more »

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Our urge to share everything – photos, food, video games scores – is blurring the line between reality and digital life. Looking at the human history of sharing experiences, it’s highly likely that this line will totally disappear in the near future.

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Remember the Web 2.0 Suicide Machine? That was for those who where fed up with only speaking with their families online, liking their own holiday pictures and spending warm summer days compulsively checking status updates from better, cooler, more successful friends. It’s now three years on, and social media have become an even more inescapable part of our everyday routine. If you’re still in doubt about whether or not to end your Facebook life, there’s now the game of Social Roulette. According to co-founder Kyle McDonald:

“Social Roulette has a 1 in 6 chance of deleting your account, and a 5 in 6 chance that it just posts “I played Social Roulette and survived” to your timeline. [...] Everyone thinks about deleting their account at some point, it’s a completely normal reaction to the overwhelming nature of digital culture. Is it time to consider a new development in your life? Are you looking for the opportunity to start fresh? Or are you just seeking cheap thrills at the expense of your social network? Maybe it’s time for you to play Social Roulette.”

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Maybe the Taiwanese artist Shuchun Hsiao was inspired by a cold winter day to reinvent the common birdhouse in the shape of the Google Maps icon. The designer understood the importance and the omnipresence of Google Maps in our society and created the Google Birdhouse Project, a modern way to accommodate birds in urban spaces.

The iconic symbol references the “surfing” of flying birds to find their arrival point, just like Google Maps does for humans. As Shuchun Hsiao explains: “Birds have the most real experience of Google Maps. Birds can fly through the city, through streets. A birdhouse becomes their destination”.

Eye-catching, but not intrusive, these niches are also interesting urban decorations. The micro in the macro, the abstract becoming material, the virtual in the real: the result of the Google Birdhouse is bewildering and strong. Perhaps something dealing with Twitter would have been more predictable.

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When we type “Flickr” or “Facebook” or “YouTube” into a browser, we seek to enter social networks and enjoy secure communication and interaction with a vast number of online users from around the world. Most of us take for granted that these words are understood by others in the same way. But what if rather than type these words on a keyboard we paint them on the walls of slums in Mali, Cambodia or Vietnam. Their meanings would certainly change.

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Last April, the city of Helsinki asked its citizens to give their opinion about the construction of a new and expensive branch of the Guggenheim museum. Brought to the streets, and set up as a real-life Facebook interface (with the addition of a powerful “Dislike” button, a nonexistent option in the social network), a big touchscreen allowed people to physically “Like” or “Dislike” the proposal.

The vote results did influence – but not determine – the city’s final decision to not pursue the project. Maybe because the touchscreen system is still missing a way to identify individuals and avoid “likejacking” or multiple votes from the same passerby, or maybe due to the semantic implication of shifting from a yes/no polar question to a more emotional like/dislike reaction.

This experimental street translation of a social network feature makes it easier to see that once we set aside technological interfaces, our ancient tribal dynamics are the very reason behind the existence and popularity of social networks. Now hit the button/leave a rock in the pile if you’d like to leave your opinion.

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Why do phones make the noise of a camera shutter every time a picture is taken, the save icon remain a floppy disk, your email have an envelope and your iCalendar look like its made from a cow?

On the one hand, being the creatures of habit that we are, we find comfort in the familiar. But does that come at a cost and limit functionality, as well as cheapen our experiences?

In products the real material generally costs more and (arguably) is perceived as better. (Think solid aluminium Macbook Air vs Ultrabook) but in the digital we’re already aware that the form is generally 2D and not physical.

In a sense skeuomorphism makes the digital more approachable and understandable, the argument remains as to whether we now need our digital technology to imitate that which exists, or on the other hand do we expect our technology to surpass the physical?

Handwritings great, but I guess most people bought a phone to type, and reading “marker felt” on a 4″ screen in pt. 7 size font is painful at best. Bring on Helvetica. Or better yet Newvetica.

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Scientists claim to have discovered a “prehistoric version of Facebook” used by ancient tribes to communicate with each other. After analyzing over 3000 rock art images in Sweden and Russia, Mark Sapwell and his team from Cambridge University concluded that the sites functioned like an “archaic related stories version” of social networks where users shared thoughts and emotions and gave stamps of approval to other contributions – very similar to today’s Facebook like.

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“Earlier today, certain realms were affected by an in-game exploit, resulting in the deaths of player characters and non-player characters in some of the major cities,” wrote a representative going by the name of Nethaera. This October, a serial hacker laid waste to World of Warcraft (WoW), unleashing a deadly “significant hack”. This virtual genocide left thousands of skeletons littering the realm of Azeroth. Perhaps stranger still was the fact that mainstream news organizations from the BBC to the Huffington Post breathlessly reported the events. As we move towards an increasingly virtual existence we should expect a lot more major virtual news.

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FC Baku is one of the football teams of the capital city of Azerbaijan. The club just chose the new manager: an unknow guy of 21 years of age. Vugar Guloglan Oglu Huseynzade has never trained a real team before, he was hired for his knowledge of Football Manager, the videogame.

Considering the fact that videogames nature is getting closer and closer to real nature, this makes sense from a next nature point of view, but I have to say this is still a brave decision for a football club. We will follow them in the next games. Go Baku!